My Overcoat of Clay
by InjaMorgan
Summary: Destiny can be a cruel thing, no matter how much good or evil you do in your life. Not always does working at Torchwood also mean a death by Torchwood. And that's something even Ianto and Jack have to learn...
1. Exposition – Waking Up

**A/N:** _Am I actually doing this? Oh good Godstiel, yes, I am, even if I already know that some people will hate me for this idea._

_So, this story was born out of some stories I read here on FFnet and elsewhere that kinda touched this topic but never really reached the … depth I'd wanted. So I started writing down what I liked to see, and the outcome of it was this story in 13 parts/chapters. It's finished in German and I'll translate the chapters slowly, probably posting them once a week. So, I know where everything will end ;-)_

**Setting:** Starts around the middle of Series Two, but definitely before "Reset", but the plot spans until CoE. Technically an **AU**.

**Wordcount:** About 14.000

**Disclaimer:** Torchwood © BBC/Starz; inspiring music © _The Fountain_/Clint Mansell; plotline and details of the idea © Me.

**WARNING: Death of a main character. Really, guys, I cried while writing, and again while translating it. If you're mentally unstable right now and don't know if you should read this, CLOSE THIS FUCKING WINDOW IMMEDIATELY!**

* * *

><p><strong>My Overcoat of Clay<strong>

+TW+

**Exposition – Waking Up **

"_This should be everything, but … are you sure you want to tell him alone? I could at least … you know…"_

"_Yes, I'm sure. Although … I think I need a coffee first."_

+TW+_  
><em>

There was a quiet knock on the office door, and Jack looked up from the Unit report he had been trying to fill out for the last two hours, without much success. It had been lying on top of his daily paperwork pile on his desk this morning, decorated with a brilliant yellow post-it saying "Urgent!" in Ianto's neat handwriting. Everyone in Torchwood Three knew by now that Jack couldn't be arsed to do his paperwork and thus Ianto had to do the lion's share of the things that needed to be archived or sent to the Crown or UNIT, but sometimes the young Welshman wanted to show his boss, with little gestures such as this, that the paperwork remained Jack's task and that he was not his PA.

Therefore, Jack had sat down dutifully and tried to concentrate on that stupid report, but there were just so many things floating around in his mind. Again and again he had found himself staring out of the window into the main room of the Hub. However, he didn't want to accept why he was so restless, so shaken.

So it wasn't really surprising that Jack greeted the younger man with a not very honest smile when the latter entered the room with two steaming mugs of coffee.

Likewise, the frantically upturned corners of Ianto's mouth couldn't be called a smile, either.

Jack recognized the well-known mask in the blink of an eye; a mask he thought had been destroyed long ago. Something wasn't right, and still he made a choice – it was a way to keep the feeling of security just a bit longer – and used some small talk as a greeting.

"Ianto Jones, I could set my clock to you bringing the coffee!" Jack's own smile got a bit broader, a bit more honest. Ianto's features smoothed, too, and he seemed to accept the possibility of an escape thankfully.

"And I thought that was included in my job description," he said, getting closer to the desk, Jack watching him like a hawk. Ianto's movements were strangely clumsy, as if he didn't know anymore how to move his arms and legs, and his shoulders seemed to slouch; just enough to fool a more unobservant watcher.

But Jack noticed it. Since the incident with the Cyberwoman, he had learnt to read Ianto like the proverbial open book, and he really didn't like the things those special pages told him about the situation.

Still, he smiled and added a short laugh at the younger man's remark, which sounded even to his ears false and feigned. Ianto tried to laugh with him, but made the mistake of looking directly into Jack's eyes, which in turn allowed Jack to look back into Ianto's.

His eyes were all red and puffy, as if he had been … crying.

"Ianto…" Jack used the opportunity and grabbed the wrist of the other man just as he had put the second mug on the desk. For a second, they remained in that position, Jack still staring into Ianto's eyes, which showed him that the world behind the mask was in turmoil. The gnawing feeling in Jack's stomach became a thick lump in his throat.

"What did Owen find out?" He was slightly amazed that the sentence didn't come out as a raw croak, so much did he feel the noose around his neck. All of this was happening because Ianto had woken up with a severe headache this morning, and hadn't been able to walk two steps straight without supporting himself on something. It didn't last long, maybe ten minutes, but a whimpering Ianto, curled up on the bed and totally disorientated after the incident, had scared Jack so much that the first thing he did after he got them to the Hub was pass Ianto to Owen and order a thorough check-up for the young Welshman.

Since then, more than two hours had passed, in which Jack had hoped and prayed that Ianto had caught some terrestrial virus and nothing … else.

But Ianto didn't support that small hope when he broke the eye contact and turned his head to the side. Immediately, Jack stood up, walked around the desk, not letting go of Ianto's hand for a second, and pulled the younger man into a tight embrace. It was the anchor in the storm that Ianto had summoned with that wordless action.

"Please… just tell me…" Jack said quietly, stroking Ianto's back as if this could change that the younger man's fingers were digging into Jack's shirt. He knew Ianto was trying to stifle his sobs by biting into the fabric, and for a short, fleeting moment Jack actually thought he would soon feel tears seeping through it, but then Ianto raised his head again and looked at him.

First, he didn't recognize what clouded Ianto's eyes apart from the tears, but then he thought he could see it, very clearly even.

Despair.

"I'm going to die, Jack."

+TW+

_On the way to death, everyone experiences the Five Stages of Dying:_

_Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance._

_Not necessarily in that exact order._

* * *

><p><em>www(dot)youtube(dot)com watch?v=SXpnI52cLEc_


	2. Denial  One

**A/N: **_Just as a short explanation: The following twelve chapters will all have one of the "stages of death" as a ... basic motif, except three short scenes that I had the feel to add, even if they don't really ... "belong" to any stage. The chapters won't tell a ... "complete" story either. I'll just give you glimpses into what is happening, just short snippets. If I could draw, I would do one polaroid per chapter, there's always one vital scene that determines the chapter._

_Oh, and: Thanks for the two comments, thanks to the three people who favved and the six that put this story on alert. You're awesome!_**  
><strong>

**Disclaimer:** Torchwood © BBC/Starz; inspiring music © _The Fountain_/Clint Mansell; plotline and details of the idea © Me.

* * *

><p><strong>My Overcoat of Clay<strong>

+TW+

**Denial – One**

A single, dark green horizontal stripe decorated the walls of the whole corridor. It seemed to just be there to make the clinical white of the rest of the walls and the grey, sickly pale PVC floor coating a bit friendlier. Also green were the shoes, trousers and shirts of most of the people walking along the corridor, but mostly of a lighter shade. Surgical gowns that Ianto had seen Owen wearing more than once.

Someone had pushed one of those dreadful coffees produced by a vending machine into his hands, but he hadn't even sipped from it, and the dark liquid was probably cold by now.

Instead, he'd looked through the glass walls of the waiting room at the dark green stripe in the hall and had tried to find out if there was a mistake on the edges somewhere, or even blobs of the intense colour on the pure white.

"… and in the end it was just a blotch on the screen or … I don't know, the machine had a malfunction…"

Jack hadn't been able to stop talking, and Ianto didn't even pay attention to his sentences anymore. There had been this moment, when he had stood in the office, Jack's arms around him, when he had thought that a wisp of wind could have turned him into a pile of shards, but strangely, it hadn't happened.

Now he felt empty.

No, empty was the wrong word – but he got along with the whole situation definitely better than Jack did.

An involuntary smile flitted across his lips for a second. Shortly after the thing with … the Cyberwoman, he had scribbled a brief, but honest entry into his diary: That he'd never thought to see his twenty-fourth birthday with such a dangerous job like his. Canary Wharf had nearly managed it, after all. Now his next birthday was so very close, and as far as he could interpret Owen's headshake, it was rather questionable if he would even turn 26.

However, when writing the entry he had thought his death would come at the hands of some aliens. Maybe a simple bullet, and it didn't seem to matter if it was out of an alien weapon or Jack's Webley..

But … like this?

Somehow it scared Ianto that he had accepted an early death already back then.

Likewise, it scared Ianto how Jack reacted in this situation. Once, when he must have been in his juvenile phase of outsider and weirdo who quickly occupied himself with very strange hobbies, he had got hold of a book about death. The stage theory about dying had fascinated him and, looking at it that way, he knew on which of the stages Jack was right now.

"… Owen's a good doctor, but even _he_ isn't impeccable, am I right, Ianto?"

The mentioning of his name startled Ianto from his deep thoughts and he turned his head to look at Jack. In the few hours that had passed since the short talk about the diagnosis, the other man seemed to have aged. Suddenly, he had deep rings under his eyes, and the normally so very confident Jack appeared to be … afraid.

Ianto had to admit that this behaviour baffled him.

Yes, they might have been … closer for a longer time. Ianto couldn't find a good word for it, but … Jack trusted him. He saw it once in a while, the unspoken and unlimited trust while in the field or with small things like a report that he put into the Archives without asking for Jack's blessing first.

Adding to that, there were the moments when Ianto realized that he was indeed something special in Jack's eyes. When the latter woke from bad dreams, Ianto held him and if Jack was ready, he told Ianto what was burdening his soul. And _only _Ianto.

In turn, Jack did the same when Ianto woke in the middle of the night screaming, although the nightmares had gotten fewer and fewer since Jack had moved into Ianto's small flat, bringing along only a few shirts and a toothbrush.

But was it … that?

Because here, now, while waiting for a doctor to take Ianto into the rooms to prepare him for the "actual" MRI (Jack's words, not his), it seemed as if the older man had wrapped himself in a cocoon of hollow phrases that were supposed to calm him down and seal off from the idea that Owen would never be mistaken. However, Ianto could only guess if this cocoon would also be able to protect Jack from his own feelings that were crashing down on him with the might of a storm right now.

In a strange way, he felt sure of one thing: That this must be one of the few moments that the great Captain Jack Harkness was afraid. Genuine and true fear.

And that's why Ianto grabbed Jack's hand as he put aside his own plastic cup of cold, inedible coffee-like brew, gave him an encouraging smile and spoke the one sentence aloud which his Mam had whispered into his ear when she had been brought into hospital.

"I'm sure it'll work out all right."

+TW+


End file.
